The Three Legged Duck Still Waddles
by chrissie
Summary: TezuFujiRyoma. Trying to achieve balance with three symbols.


Note: I have yet to figure out how fanfiction dot net's formatting system works; it drives me completely bugfuck. Ryoma's sections are supposed to be prefaced with a '.', except fanfiction dot net's document editor seems determined not to let that happen. I'd link a more properly formatted version of the story, but fanfiction dot net doesn't allow URLs in story text either, it seems. Fabulous. 

The Three-Legged Duck Still Waddles

l

Tezuka remembers the last year of junior high as a progression of disasters, from Echizen's disconcerting arrival to defeat to exile, as well as what comes after, which makes everything previous look like a lazy fishing trip on a cloudless day.

It spools out from the usual worries in the beginning: student council affairs, his grandfather's slowly failing health, the last chance to bring Seigaku to the Nationals as he'd promised. Trips to the doctor, repetitive and interminable, always hopeful, never cured, and the vexation hidden under overlapping layers of detachment. There is a buzz of frustration circling him like a dizzy bumblebee, unnoticed by everyone except perhaps Fuji, who tosses him wet towels during practice with the admonishment to cool down while the others joke of Buchou the iceberg, and slants him secret, conspiratorial smiles that prickle at the back of his neck.

Echizen arrives on the scene like a fracture on a windowpane, shattering the illusion of invisibility and emphasizing that the glass is there and it is broken. Tezuka looks at the cap pulled low over slanted eyes, the disdainful tilt of the chin and thinks, this is a new brand of pride, alien to those he's known before, three stretches of distance from earth to moon away from his own.

"He reminds me of someone I know," says Fuji, his gaze resting on Echizen only briefly before coming back to settle on Tezuka, half-lidded eyes alight with mischief and something else.

"You know too many people," is all Tezuka says before stepping onto the court.

+

O

Fuji remembers the last year of junior high as just another spin on the revolving wheel of life, classes and exams and tennis and holidays arriving and departing in succession until they make a full cycle. The seasons turn and turn, and Fuji returns again to the starting point.

The center never shifts.

At the beginning of the school year, one of his cacti develops stem rot and must be disposed of, leaving eight to sun themselves on his windowsill. It's from the number that the idea of naming them grows -- eight cacti, eight Seigaku regulars, and the idea is so whimsical he has to go through with it.

He christens them according to physical characteristics, the tallest becoming Inui, the bulkiest Takamura, the one with the longest segments Kaidoh. Eiji has a slight reddish tinge and Oishi a perfectly rounded head, while Momoshiro waves his limbs crazily every which way and Tezuka is straight and unbending as a lightning rod.

That leaves only his own name for the last, but while Fuji has no problem talking to cacti as though they are people -- ("You musn't peek while the girl across the street is changing, Momoshiro-kun," "Buchou, won't you _ever_ bloom for me?") -- the thought of talking to a cactus like talking to himself smacks vaguely of dissociative disorder; besides which, the only cactus left is a small, sorry-looking thing, very thin, nothing but stem and spikes.

When Echizen makes the team he is immoderately delighted.

+

Ryoma remembers the first year of junior high as something that happened to someone else. The very few friends of the family who visit them exclaim over his adaptability, how well he's making the transition.

The truth is, environment has never left much of a mark on Ryoma; he is not Echizen Ryoma of Jackson Elementary or Echizen Ryoma of California or Echizen Ryoma of the United States of America, just Echizen Ryoma, who lives life by endlessly reinventing himself. He learns and he changes and he sheds everything outgrown, each metamorphosis marking the burning of the past and a new beginning. Sooner or later he'll leave everything behind -- acquaintances, homes, possessions, nothing remaining except tennis and his father, and someday, he knows, he'll use the one to rid himself of the other as well. Limits are a concept foreign to him.

Seigaku gives him pause, though. The team accepts him with little fuss, seems overwhelmed by neither envy nor admiration, doesn't try to curtail him or to hail him as a savior. Momoshiro-sempai offers him rides to and from school, Kikumaru-sempai calls him Ochibi and grins at him without malice, while Inui-sempai hands him bottles of milk and intimates that he'll remain stuck at 151 centimeters forever if he doesn't drink every last drop.

"Oi, Echizen! Best two games out of three, loser pays for dinner?" Momoshiro flings an arm around his shoulders, flicks him lightly on the ear, and though he scowls, he doesn't shrug away the contact. For the first time, he feels as if he's being sought for the pleasure of his company, and understands that this is because it's the first time someone is seeing him as an equal. Japan moves at a faster rate than America; Japan is able, almost, to keep up with him.

+

l

Echizen is the catalyst; Tezuka sees him and knows an ending is at hand, except his foresight is limited and he thinks only of green balls, clay courts, nets that cocoon and imprison.

Endings bring about new beginnings and evoke both sorrow and elation, but Tezuka treats the situation with neither, eminently practical, devastatingly fair-minded. Inui is the one to give up his spot in the regulars, and Echizen takes over as if it were created for him -- as of course it was.

When Fuji takes an interest in Echizen, it feels only right, another piece of their fluctuating jigsaw slotting into place. Fuji exerts his own type of influence, a studied campaign of non-interference that, like silence, is effective in its very lack of substance -- just that dispassionate regard, unobtrusive and undemanding but refusing to be overlooked. With Fuji around, every decision is made with an audience, because Fuji doesn't miss anything; Tezuka spent an entire semester feeling the touch of Fuji's gaze like the brush of an insect's feathery antennae.

He watches Echizen's curiosity spark and leaves him to butt his head against the diaphanous wall that is Fuji. It is only one of the more challenging stages of a Seigaku Pillar's rite of passage; if Echizen is unable to handle this himself, there is no point in anticipating further.

+

O

As much as Fuji enjoys drifting through the world unhindered, it isn't nearly as pleasant when the world begins to pull up moorings around _him_.

Echizen's presence reflects itself in more ways than the name of a cactus. At first he makes an interesting addition to the team, cutting a new side to an already multi-faceted crystal, but soon Fuji realizes that this new kouhai isn't so much adding depth to the crystal as carelessly slicing it in half. The arrival of Echizen wreaks merry havoc upon the ranking among the regulars, and Fuji disregards it in the beginning only because stability has never been one of their biggest traits.

There are just two constants in the infrastructure of the Seigaku High tennis team: Fuji loses only to Tezuka, and Tezuka never loses to anyone.

The day after his match with Echizen is halted by rain, he spends an entire afternoon wandering the streets of Tokyo trying to feel as though he's going anywhere other than in circles. The rain from the previous day carries over in a sudden shower like someone kicked over a heavenly bucket, and by the time he returns home he is already sneezing and sniffling, shivering while he hangs up his sopping coat. By night he is bed-ridden.

In retaliation, he sticks Echizen's cactus in the darkest corner he can find, overwatering it to the furthest extent possible without actually killing it. There is a vindictive satisfaction in seeing it remain puny, stunted, the runt of the lot, pitifully overshadowed by the rest of his sleek and well-tended plants, but somehow the uneasiness persists, darkening his mood until even Eiji starts making excuses to avoid his company. Immobility begins to feel like a vise; for the first time, Fuji reflects that stable and stuck have much the same meaning.

+

It isn't long before Ryoma realizes that people in Japan aren't just shorter and more polite, they're also very much crazier.

Group leaders have never been fond of Ryoma; he isn't a team player, and his presence is usually enough to turn gatherings into minefields. Operating by the rule of doing unto others as they do unto you, Ryoma's never been too fond of group leaders, either, and the most they settle for is an armed truce, broken more often than not before Nanjiroh's whimsy sweeps him off again.

Tezuka is something different. People are selfish, petty, but as hard as he looks he can't find any sign of those traits in Tezuka; even more disturbing is the fact that he can't find anything _personal_ in Tezuka. Usually Ryoma is able to judge a person's character by the way they play, what they're playing for -- fun, affirmation, the thrill of victory, the smugness in showing off. Tezuka defies this type of categorization, and Ryoma feels a thread of something stirring, the prickling charge of meeting something new under the sun.

Tezuka is very, very good.

He plays tennis like the weight of the world rests on the outcome, proud and ungiving as if leading a holy crusade. Ryoma's never met anyone who takes as much fierce joy in the sport as he does himself, but Tezuka fights for something that goes beyond joy into exaltation; losing to him is a revelation, death by fire and being reborn again from the ashes. Ryoma is used to looking down on people; when he looks at Tezuka, he can't see anything but sky.

When Tezuka asks Ryoma to follow in his path, he acknowledges the request with silence because he can't bring himself to lose that approving regard by saying "No, I can't, I don't know how."

+

l

Germany is different from what he's used to, with its cold stone walls and archaic structures and brooding antiquity palpable as the scent of a bottle of wine steeped for centuries, and at the same time it's a habitat that fits him better than Japan ever did. The clipped, forceful precision of the language settles around him like pleasant rain, and no one appears surprised upon discovering that he's in his third year of junior high; only the food is hard to get used to, all fats and carbohydrates heaped together in portions fit for a sumo wrestler. The cooks in the hospital cafeteria take a liking to him, and his tray is always laden twice as high as anyone else's.

Memories of his time there are shrouded in a kind of storytale mist, as if it's something he dreamt up, a refuge tailored to subconscious desires. Japan intrudes only in the tenuous connection of Oishi's e-mails, which are sometimes cheerful, sometimes troubled, but always threaded through with hope and a conviction of Tezuka's return.

He receives a message from Fuji once, with a subject line reading **Can You Last 36 Hours ERECTION?** that he almost deletes out of hand before noticing the sender name and clicking the mail open, not without misgivings. He needn't have worried; there is nothing remotely personal within, just a nonsensical fragment that he puzzles over for days without resolution after confirming its meaning with one of the nurses.

_Oed und leer das Meer_. Desolate and empty the sea.

+

O

Life without Tezuka around tilts strangely awry, everything skewing just a few degrees off course. Practice is less cheerful, more intense, and not having to run laps grates on everyone's nerves until Oishi announces the new rule of twenty laps a day uniformly. Even his cacti begin to droop for no discernable reason, and he consults his handbooks in vain.

He wheedles Tezuka's e-mail address from Oishi, though once it's in hand he isn't sure what to do with it -- inquire after his health? Spin out fairytales? Spam him with 'interesting content' until he he puts Fuji's address on filter? In the end he is almost tempted to send off a virus and cut the connection for good, putting Seigaku's captain beyond the reach of himself and everyone else; it would be nothing but acceleration of a natural process.

He doesn't like to think about Tezuka these days. He doesn't like to think about tennis these days, and when Echizen comes around to ask him for a game while he suns himself on the sidelines during practice, he lets his eyelids droop before lifting them again as insolently as he knows how: "I'm sorry, I have plans to wash my hair today," because of all the things he wants to see now, a miniature Tezuka is not high on the list.

Echizen started it, he thinks; Echizen turned Tezuka into a remote, inaccesible _ideal_, someone that Fuji can't touch anymore. Echizen barges along at breakneck pace, always advancing, ever improving, and he's goaded Tezuka into picking up speed as well, so that they rush ahead like two comets hurtling recklessly towards the same goal, while Fuji continues his steady orbit and watches them both until they vanish out of sight.

It feels like his world is being pulled apart by two opposing forces, kinetics and inertia tearing cracks in the smooth surface. He wishes, for the first time since learning how to cut his losses in kindergarten, for someone to come and save him; the night before he goes up against Kirihara, he types out a hasty message to Tezuka and presses 'Send'.

No reply comes.

+

With Tezuka gone, Fuji becomes the strongest opponent on the team, and it's only natural to seek him out, though he looks none too enthused with the proposal. Ryoma doesn't mind the rudeness; what he minds is the way Fuji's eyes skim his briefly before going out of focus, reaching beyond. It's not a look he's unfamiliar with, but this is the first time he's been used to invoke the image of anyone other than a debauched monk, and surprisingly enough, it isn't any easier to bear.

In a perverse frame of mind, he drops the subject of the game and says, instead, "Have you heard from Buchou lately?"

Fuji lifts a thoughtful gaze to him before smiling. His smile is laced with the suggestion of sugarplums and eternal hellfire. "Let's play," he says, pushing himself up off the ground, and as they move towards one of the hastily cleared courts, Ryoma notes to himself that the way to prod this person into action is to hit him where it hurts.

Fuji plays viciously that day, seeming for the first time since Ryoma entered the club to throw himself into the game, and Ryoma doesn't have time to analyze his motivation beneath the surge of pure adrenaline as the game turns into furious battle, advantage see-sawing precariously between them, determination and elation twisting together through his veins.

It's the greatest high in the world.

It's the dizziest drop in the world, then, when Fuji doubles over in the middle of the game, clutching at his stomach. Pain -- debilitating -- unable to continue -- Ryuzaki-sensei directs Kikumaru to accompany him to the dispensary, and Ryoma is left staring after them with wide eyes, sweat dripping down in streams, still panting from residual excitement, not quite able to believe that Fuji is gone and the game has been cut short.

After they vanish into the distance, he turns to glance at the scoreboard -- 4-3, Fuji leading.

The first-years around him let out a collective squeak when he smashes a tennis ball right into the center of the 4; in his mind, its harsh angles turn into Fuji's smiling face.

+

l

The members of his team call him one by one the day he returns to Japan -- Oishi first, then Momoshiro, Kikumaru, Kawamura and Inui, who congratulates him on foiling the 87 chance of turbulence. The vice president of the student council follows, sounding thankful to be relieved of her duties, and after her Coach Ryuzuki, confirming that he'll be in for practice the next day while filling him in on the current status of the members; he hears the satisfied awe in her voice when she speaks of Echizen -- Fuji and Echizen, advancing at an incredible pace. "But you'll get a chance to see for yourself, tomorrow," and somehow it's hard for him to nod and agree before hanging up. The phone doesn't sound again, though he keeps expecting its ring.

The following afternoon, he sees them before they see him. There is a copse of young beech trees to the side of the track field, a seclusive retreat where lovers tryst and students stutter out romantic confessions under the sheltering lattice of leaves and criss-crossing branches; Tezuka has interrupted many a rendezvous-in-progress there in his role as student council president, and what he remembers now as he stares in the direction of the grove is that karma comes back to bite you in ways you least expect.

He watches them passing into the foliage, flickering in and out of sight among the slender tree trunks, and suppresses the impulse to call them back before they can completely disappear.

When they appear during practice, face to face with him for the first time in more than a month, there is nothing off except a leaf tangled in Echizen's hair, the redness of Fuji's lips. Fuji looks up at him as Oishi presents the team for inspection with a kind of bashful pride, and Tezuka's attention is lured away from his vice captain by the challenge there, an almost blatant hint of confrontation -- from Fuji, who lets everything others covet slip through his fingers like a shower of ground diamonds. He turns to Echizen, and Echizen, who has always been unashamedly blunt and matter-of-fact and unafraid to meet anyone's gaze straight on, twists his head away.

The second day of his homecoming, and already Tezuka is beginning to miss Germany.

+

O

He's not sure, afterwards, exactly why he does it. It might have something to do with spite and something to do with apprehensiveness, but mostly, he admits, it's because he just can't resist a chance to muddy up clear waters.

Tezuka is returning; Tezuka, whose gravitational field pulls others into trailing after him regardless of intent or will, who doesn't care -- very likely doesn't know -- about the havoc he leaves in his wake. If Fuji were the type of person to return emotional distress with violence, Tezuka's shoulder would be the least of his worries; fortunately for him, Fuji agrees with science fiction characters that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

On his way to the tennis courts with Eiji chattering to him about the latest B'z album, he catches sight of Echizen emerging from the school buildings, racquet over shoulder, head bowed low, looking like he's ready to plow a tunnel through a stone wall. Inspiration strikes out of the clear blue sky.

"Go ahead without me, won't you?" he says, ignoring Eiji's wondering look, giving his friend a slight nudge towards the courts. "I have something to discuss with Echizen."

The Lover's Grove lies conveniently close, and Fuji isn't troubled by memories of past confessions, rejections, girls blushing before crying, the tennis club sempai who had to be handled delicately because Fuji didn't want acrimony in the club. Echizen follows warily, but follows; his instincts are trustworthy but overriden by pride, another of those traits he shares with Tezuka, and for a moment Fuji feels almost tender towards them both -- life is setting them up for harsh knocks, and they look so aware of the dangers that no one thinks to give them warning. It is not always an asset to appear more intelligent than you are.

"Well?" snaps Echizen, appearing finally to lose patience; he's been touchy around Fuji ever since their last game, which Fuji counts as a victory. No sense in being the only person who's no longer certain if north is north and progress is illusion. "Don't tell me you brought me here to profess eternal devotion? Because in that case I'll just -- "

He cuts Echizen off with a kiss.

It's just a brief pressure of cool lips against chapped, strange, awkward, nothing to write home about, and he's already regretting the impulse when he straightens up, quashing the urge to wipe at his mouth; but if he doesn't know better, surely Echizen can't be expected to, either.

He's forgotten, naturally, that Echizen grew up in the land of sexual liberty and free love.

"You kiss like a novice, Fuji-sempai," he says upon pulling back with a smirk only slightly strained around the edges, and Fuji wonders briefly if violence would be _completely_ inappropriate under these circumstances.

Instead, he says "Then teach me how the experts do it, ne, Echizen-kun?", tilting his head with a gentle smile that doesn't show any hint of fang at all.

Echizen does.

+

They are crazy, crazy, and Ryoma wonders if he's going crazy with them. Their presence weighs him down, drags on him like silken ropes tied to the legs of elephants, until he brings such a fury into his game that his father begins to look alarmed when they play, and asks him, afterwards, if there's anything going on in school.

"No," he says without stopping to think. If he'd killed half the school faculty, burned down the school and been marked for capture by the police, the answer would be the same.

The Nationals continue, a battling arena where he meets skilled opponents to defeat and assimilate before moving on. It is what he does, nothing worthy of note, except every time, through every change, he looks around and though all else has shifted, they are still there -- Tezuka progressing steadily at a ground-eating pace, Fuji making his implacable orbit. They don't leave him behind, and he can't rid himself of them.

When Tezuka wins the match that guarantees them the Nationals trophy, Ryoma tilts his head up for a drink of water, ignoring Tezuka's return and the jubilation of the team, ear-piercing screams, cheers, high-fives. The victory belongs partially to him but he doesn't belong to it; he'll go further, jump higher, and this moment in time is nothing but a departing temporal hiccup.

As he lowers his water bottle, he finds Tezuka standing apart from the crowd, levelling a considering gaze at him, and realizes, with an abrupt tightening of his throat, that he's given the show away.

'I'm sorry, I can't, I don't know how,' except Tezuka, for all his virtue, is without mercy when it comes to the future of Seigaku. Ryoma keeps his chin lifted, meeting Tezuka's gaze, unblinking, waiting for a judgement that shouldn't matter.

It never comes. Fuji appears beside Tezuka, snags him in what looks like an attempt to lead him back to the group hug, and Tezuka turns immediately at the contact, eyes sweeping down to where Fuji's fingers rest lightly on his bare arm. Ryoma feels abruptly like an intruder instead of a defendant in the box.

And then, just as clearly, he knows he is neither. Tezuka pulls away, turns around, and doesn't look at either of them during the entire trip back.

Fuji takes the seat next to him on the bus, ignoring his glare and Momoshiro's surprise with unselfconscious possession. He waits until the exuberant post-victory chatter is at its most raucous before leaning in and whispering in Ryoma's ear, "He has other things to worry about," low and husky in a way that reminds Ryoma of R-rated movies and seduction over cocktails, and the school brochures in English he's seen sticking out from Tezuka's pockets.

He twitches away, and Fuji, chuckling, reaches out to pull him back. For the first time Ryoma notices that his palm is covered with tiny pin-pricks, red dots running like a rash down the skin.

"Is that contagious?" he says.

Fuji seems to know exactly what he's talking about, glancing down at the wounds with a look that is almost fond. "Attack by recalcitrant cactus," he says, shrugging ruefully. "I threw it out the window, but regretted it afterwards. It was rather an intriguing cactus."

They are crazy, crazy, and Ryoma thinks he's going crazy with them, because the words make perfect sense to him, and just before exhaustion snatches him from the waking world, he allows, with a yawn, his head to rest against Fuji's shoulder.

+

l

Echizen challenges him to a second game the afternoon he officially passes the position of captain to Momoshiro. Tezuka looks down into those golden eyes that look like they could devour the world without fulfillment and sees pride, unshakeable determination, something almost resembling desperation. Perhaps Fuji could have refused such a request, which is just enough to ensure that Tezuka can't.

The tennis court under the bridge is unchanged. Echizen chases away its young occupants with a word and an abrupt toss of his head -- he's becoming famous in street tennis circles, according to Oishi -- and soon they are left alone, the kids prevented from audiencing by Echizen's impatient shooing motions. It isn't how Tezuka would have dealt with the situation, but he can't deny its effectiveness.

In the end he wins the game, six to four. Echizen is superb, far stronger than he'd been in their previous match, but Tezuka is Tezuka, older, fashioned of steel and will, and now he has the full use of his left arm.

Sunset fades into twilight, and Echizen stands on the opposite side of the net, staring at the ground in a way that hides his expression under bangs and shadow. For a moment Tezuka wonders if this is the parting gift he should have left to the boy he's groomed as his successor, then dismisses the thought as ridiculous; there was no other choice to be taken, which is the usual case where Echizen is concerned. He doesn't offer that leisure.

"Buchou," he hears, and realizes that Echizen has lifted his head, gaze once again direct and unwavering, a falcon sure of its course. He wonders if he's imagining that hint of relief.

"That's Momoshiro, now," he says.

Echizen ignores that. "America sucks," he says, and doesn't wait for Tezuka's surprise to pass before continuing, "it's big and empty and there's all kinds of racial discrimination, and even when the people are nice and kind, they don't understand anything." He pauses, then adds, "Germany probably sucks, too...well, ja."

He slings his racquet over his shoulder and leaves with no visible diminishment of arrogance, leaving Tezuka to watch him stroll down the sidewalk, hands in pockets, a compressed package of leashed force, like there are a thousand games ahead of him and he knows he'll win every one.

It's the game for Echizen, each step of the process and not the goal, and as he disappears around a corner, Tezuka thinks, _thank god_.

+

O

On graduation day, he steals Tezuka off from backstage with a finger over his lips after Tezuka finishes the valedictorian speech.

"Quickly," he whispers, pulling Tezuka towards one of the emergency exits, and perhaps it's a signal that this day is indeed the end to certain things that Tezuka allows himself to be pulled, stepping out with him from the darkness of the auditorium into sunshine and the empty schoolyard.

Lover's Grove will be busy today, the lower-years taking advantage of this last chance to declare their feelings, which is why Fuji chose this splinter of time when everyone is busy with either classes or ceremony for his own tryst. He slants a glance over at Tezuka and finds him looking back with a hint of grimness in the set of his jaw; real anger, and not for being dragged out without explanation, as might be expected.

"Please," he says when Tezuka refuses to budge further, and maybe he's becoming easier to read as well, maybe he reveals something of himself now that Tezuka's pages have opened up to him, because Tezuka relaxes after a moment of hesitation and they pass in together.

The shade is cool and the grass is soft, and Fuji finds them comfortable seating with the smooth gray bark of tree trunks to lean against.

"What is it?" Tezuka's voice sounds both wary and weary, and Fuji notes the dark shadows under his eyes while observing that, even now, there is an underlying current of strength in it, the kind of voice you'd build a house on, solid as rock; even in motion it wouldn't wobble, wouldn't shake anything loose that clung to it.

"I'm glad," he says, "that we'll be schoolmates again next year."

Tezuka doesn't answer, but the ironic weight of his gaze indicates that he finds this a less than joyful prospect.

Just for that, Fuji thinks, and lets a smile curve his lips. "I lost one of my cacti a while ago," he remarks inconsequentially, and watches in satisfaction as Tezuka's eyebrows lift. "A prickly pear, actually; proud and unmanageable, very irritating at times, and somehow it always ended up between me and my prize Queen of the Night -- that's an orchid cactus, _Cereus hildmannianus_; only blooms for a single night, so you have to pay careful attention to it, in case it blooms and fades without fanfare as you dream. The prickly pear was encouraging _Cereus_ not to bloom for me -- "

"Fuji," and there is no describing the disbelief and exasperation in that short utterance of his name.

"Listen," he chides, and draws out the anecdote, mentioning different breeds of cacti, their traits and characteristics, how to care for them, which diseases to look out for, information that nobody but a fellow enthusiast would find absorbing. The sun is warm, lulling. He has a soothing voice, and Tezuka's been exahusting himself lately with the relinquishing of tennis club duties, student council duties. They rarely exchange words between them, but now he talks with a vengeance, and notes from a corner of his eye the way Tezuka's head is beginning to nod, eyelids shuttering for longer and longer intervals.

" -- I was so angry that day, I picked it up and hurled it out the window. Rather stupid of me, because, you know, beyond the normal spines, _Opuntia_ have thin hidden ones that can stick in your skin, took forever to remove them all, and it still hurts. But afterwards, I didn't get to see _Cereus_ bloom, either, and -- I realized it was because I wouldn't stay up for it, I wouldn't alter my sleeping schedule just to catch a glimpse of those blossoms, since that was during exams, Nationals, and it wouldn't be practical...so you see, it was my problem all along."

He looks over to see Tezuka's eyes closed, his chest rising and falling rhythmically, steadily, at peace for the first time that Fuji's seen since his return from Germany. The storytelling has served its purpose, then, and hopefully Tezuka won't remember any of it upon waking, though of course it won't much matter if he does. In the distance, the school bells ring, signalling the impending outpouring of students from their classrooms; soon this will no longer be a secluded haven for them alone. No rest for the virtuous.

There's still a bit of time. He reaches over.

+

There is an end to all things, and none stay long enough for him to mourn its passing.

When Fuji's smiling face appears in the classroom doorway, he considers turning away, playing dumb, allowing the girls to swarm Fuji over as they look only too happy to do. Though Fuji won't leave Seigaku, the high-schoolers keep themselves to a separate building, so this might well be the last chance they have to see him in two years; granting it is probably not only convenient but right. It's a pity for the girls, then, that Ryoma doesn't know the meaning of altruism.

"Echizen-kun, can you spare a moment?" Porcelain smile, unshakeable as steel, that he doesn't acknowledge while stepping out into the hallway; by unspoken agreement they move away from the gawking observation of his classmates into a more secluded corner.

"Well?"

Before he can pull away, Fuji is stuffing something into his palm: two somethings, cold and round and hard, but not as cold and hard, he notes distantly, as Fuji himself.

"A graduation present from me to you, as I'm sure you forgot to prepare one for me." Fuji beams at him, brotherly solicitude and gentle encouragement, and Ryoma wonders if he practices that expression in the mirror as he brushes his teeth.

When he opens his fist, he finds two metallic buttons gleaming up at him.

He stares at them, then at Fuji. Belatedly, he realizes that there are only a few strands of dangling thread where the second button ought to be on Fuji's uniform.

"Do I look like a tailor to you?"

There is a pause.

"You don't know the superstition?" Fuji appears delighted, bangs sweeping down as he lowers his head and covers a laugh, resembling a quivering mushroom that Ryoma has the urge to step on. "S-sorry, I should have expected. Ask a friend, then -- but I wouldn't mention the reason, if I were you. People might get ideas," and the glint in his eyes is unmistakably vulpine.

"I doubt they can come up with anything worse than the truth," which sets Fuji to chuckling again.

He straightens upon recovering, flashes Ryoma a bright smile, saying "I'll see you soon, then; in the meantine, don't do anything I wouldn't do," and is moving swiftly away before Ryoma can ask him what he means by 'soon', and why it sounds more significant than it should. Girls huddle in clusters, whispering, no doubt spinning theories on their topic of discussion, but Ryoma ignores them to retrace his steps down the hallway.

Back during the last match with Tezuka, he'd discovered with the shock that marked revelation that he'd never be able to leave them behind, would never return to solitude, and that _ he didn't care_; the idea seemed inevitable as the rising sun.

Then the approach of graduation, the season of sakura petals and diplomas, and he'd realized that he was a fool, and the only difference was that this time it would be the other way around.

Now, though -- he thinks of Fuji's words. He thinks of how it will feel to always have them before him, around him, pulling him down with considerations of something other than self when he's still used to being free and alone.

Ryoma knows how to adapt. He'll grow used to the weight, he decides, and enters his classroom with a lighter heart, already mapping out a way to break Fuji's third counter.

+

l

When he wakes, Fuji is gone and Ryuzaki-sensei's grand-daughter is bending over him with a face red as apples. "T-Tezuka-sempai," she says, stumbling only a little over his name, "you'll catch cold like this."

"Thank you." He brushes the grass from his clothes, crushing down annoyance at this girl for disturbing the first good rest he's had in a week, at himself for falling into Fuji's incomprehensible trap, at Fuji for abandoning him. It's not her fault, not truly his fault, and he's long since given up any hope of having Fuji adhere to conventional niceties.

"Y-yes," she nods hastily, then stares at him with her hands coming up to press over her mouth. The second button of his uniform is missing, he realizes, and looking at the blushing girl in front of him with a mental sigh, he has no doubt who the culprit is. He can't deal with the infatuation of of the lower-years, much less those blood-related to his coach, and moves away quickly enough that he can pretend he doesn't hear her frantic "Tezuka-sempai, wait!"

As he crosses back through the schoolyard, he realizes with a faint but growing unease that nearly every head turns as he passes, boys and girls turning equally red when he glances at them. He wonders if the wrinkles in his uniform are too noticeable; does he have grass in his hair? stains on his trousers? On the other hand, no one approaches him, which is a blessing -- he dislikes scenes, and graduation seems to bring out the worst of them -- and so he puts it from his mind, resolving not to look a gift horse in the mouth; this is how the afternoon passes, amidst a dizzying sense of unreality.

At the end of the day it is Oishi who pulls the 'Kiss Me' sign off his back.


End file.
